Deborah Kops is Research Fellow for HfS Research, and leads her own practice in sourcing change management entitled SourcingChange (www.sourcingchange.com). Deborah recently left one of those high powered corporate jobs to focus on the challenges of change for outsourcing and shared services to establish the only industry resource dedicated to change management. HfS Research is now the first analyst firm to recognize the implications of change management on sourcing success by collaborating with Deborah, who regularly contributes her analysis and insights for HfS subscribers and research clients.

Deborah acknowledges that she learned about the challenges of sourcing change management the hard way-by failing. As a result, she is able to deliver results in situations where change is required and the rules must be rewritten, focusing on elimination of barriers to adoption, and helping stakeholders acquire new skills to effectively adopt, embrace and expand new business models such as outsourcing

With experience as a corporate managing director, consulting partner and provider, Deborah has a unique perspective on the major challenge to outsourcing and shared services implementation-effectively and sustainably changing the way people work in light of the myriad implications of sourcing-new relationships, different cultures, enhanced technologies, different delivery locations, new cost structure, changed workflows, focus on the customer, increased quality, introduction of commercial structures, and other considerations.

As a client, Deborah had end-to-end responsibility for global sourcing implementation at two financial institutions. At a global investment bank, she served as the transformation leader for a market-first global procure-to-pay outsourcing implementation, and set up an enterprise-wide “smartsourcing” initiative. For a top-seven US bank, now part of Bank of America, she managed and sourced administrative processes, increasing customer satisfaction of the all-important retail banking division.

Formerly an executive with one of the largest offshore business process outsourcing (BPO) companies, and a founding partner of PricewaterhouseCoopers’ pioneering outsourcing line of business, Deborah saw the implications of change management issues from the provider perspective first hand. And, as an advisor, she has honed consulting and communication techniques that help clients institutionalize change leadership, working with major corporations in North America, Europe and Asia.

Deborah is a prolific writer who currently writes columns on change management for SSON Network and Outsourcing Today. She is an occasional columnist for Global Services and is a contributor to the Human Resources Business Review - a journal of the Human Resources Outsourcing Association, Business Trends Quarterly, and the European Outsourcing Review. Deborah has presented at industry forums sponsored by such organizations as Deloitte, the Financial Times, Corporate Research Foundation, SSON, Das Shared Services Internationale/Management Circle, The Conference Board, HROA, and Global Services. She has delivered workshops at institutions such as University of Pennsylvania Wharton School of Business, Carnegie-Mellon University, and Lancaster University School of Management.

Deborah is probably the only graduate architect in the sourcing world. Late nights at the drawing board earned her a bachelors degree at the University of Illinois and a masters from Virginia Tech. After six years of hard graft in the design world, she thought there were better ways to make a living.

Deborah is married to an Englishman who is a dead ringer for Samuel Beckett, is a hiker and after many years of airline lounges, still likes to travel.